OH DEER - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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OH DEER

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OH DEER A non-technological model for species survival and predator/prey interactions. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: OH DEER


1
OH DEER
  • A non-technological model for species survival
    and predator/prey interactions.

2
  • GRADE LEVEL 4-6, Science-Environmental Education
  • OVERVIEW This lesson in environmental education
    is necessary to show children the interdependence
    of animal life with their environment.
  • PURPOSE With our planet in the serious condition
    it exists today, children need to see the plan of
    nature so that they can understand the need to
    preserve and protect our resources.

3
OBJECTIVES
  • Students will be able to
  • 1) identify and describe food, water and shelter
    as three essential components of habitat.
  • 2) describe the importance of good habitat for
    animals.
  • 3) define "limiting factors" and give examples.
  • 4) recognize that some fluctuations in wildlife
    populations are natural as ecological systems
    undergo a constant change.

4
DIRECTIONS
  • Have students count off in fours, with all those
    sharing the same number gathering in certain
    corners of the classroom. (This game is best
    played outdoors but may be adapted to inside
    play.)
  • Mark off two parallel lines on the playground or
    floor that are about ten to twenty yards apart.
  • Have all the "ones" behind one line and all the
    rest behind the other line. The "ones" will
    become the deer.
  • The other students will become the components of
    habitat food, water, shelter and space.

5
  • When a deer is looking for food, it should clamp
    its hands over its stomach. When it's looking for
    water, it puts its hands over its mouth. When it
    is looking for shelter, it holds its hands
    together over its head. When it is looking for
    space, it should hold its arms straight out at
    its sides. A deer can choose to look for any of
    these needs during each round, but it cannot
    change what it is looking for in that round. It
    can change in the next round if it survives.
  • The students who are the components of habitat
    may choose which they will be at the beginning of
    each round. They will depict that component in
    the same manner as the deer.

6
  • The game starts with all players lined up on
    their respective lines and with their backs to
    the students at the other side. The teacher asks
    all students to pick their sign. When they are
    ready, count "One...two...three." At the count
    of three, the students turn and face each other
    showing their signs.
  • The deer run to the habitat component they are
    looking for and take that component back to the
    deer side of the line. (This represents the
    deer's successfully meeting its needs and
    reproducing as a result.) Any deer that fails to
    find the component it was seeking dies and
    becomes part of the habitat, joining the students
    on the habitat side.
  • The teacher keeps track of the number of deer at
    the beginning and ending of each round. Continue
    play for fifteen rounds.

7
  • At the end of fifteen rounds discuss the
    activity encouraging the students to talk about
    what they experienced and saw. The herd grows in
    the beginning, then some must die as the habitat
    is depleted. This fluctuation is a natural
    process unless factors which limit population
    become excessive.
  • Discuss what excessive limiting factors are
    drought, fires, deforestation, uncontrolled
    hunting.
  • The teacher should make a line graph of the
    number of deer alive at the end of each round to
    show that it is naturally cyclical.
  • Have the students summarize what they have
    learned from the activity.

8
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9
  • If the game is played again, be sure to include
    the limiting factors. For example, if their is a
    drought no student on the habitat side can choose
    water as their symbol.
  • A new graph can be made to show the difference
    made in the natural cycles.

10
Hare and Lynx Case Study
  • When you have finished tabulating the graph data
    and discussing it, ask the students if they have
    ever heard of the Hudson Bay trappers in American
    history. Tell them briefly who they were.
  • There is a hundred years or more of records of
    the activities of these trappers. In those
    records are some interesting data. These data
    refer to pelts shipped from America to Europe,
    particularly the pelts of snowshoe hares and
    lynx.
  • Researchers have found that snowshoe hare
    populations seem to peak about every 7 9 years
    and then crash, repeating the process over each
    comparable time period.

11
  • It has also been discovered that lynx populations
    do the same thing except that they do it one
    year behind the hare populations.
  • Ask the students to look at the graphs and
    answer
  • Which animal is the predator? Which is the prey?
  • Are predators controlling the prey, or are the
    prey controlling the predators? (We have been
    brought up to know that predators control the
    prey and are now discovering that this is not
    so. The number of prey animals available tells
    us how many predators can live in the area.)
  • Is this like the deer habitat game we just
    played? Who controls? (Sometimes the deer when
    the deer population is not too large sometimes
    the habitat when the deer population gets on
    top of it and destroys the vegetative food and
    cover.)

12
Hare and lynx graphs
13
  • Some recent research has added a new dimension to
    the story of the snowshoe hares and the lynx.
  • It has been found that the major food of the hare
    is a small willow. As hare populations grow, the
    use of the willow plants grows, too. But, when
    the willow plant has been hedged or eaten back
    so far, the plant generates a toxin (poison)
    which precludes use by the hare. That is when
    the hare population crashes, followed by the
    crash of the lynx population about a year later.
  • Then the willow, relieved of pressure, begins to
    grow again. The hare population begins to grow
    in response, and , last of all, within a year or
    so, the lynx population follows.
  • And the cycle has begun again over and over
    every 7 -9 years.
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